What does disappointingly or frustratingly mean?

Question

She disappointingly/frustratingly shook her head.

What does that sentence mean?

Did she express her disappointment/frustration or did her shaking head arouse disappointment/frustration?

Hellion · Accepted Answer

My inclination is to say that when "disappointingly" is used to modify the nature of a person's reported speech, it's likely that it is a typo, mis-hearing, or plain speaking error.  But, there is a certainly a clear difference in meaning between "frustratingly" and "frustratedly", and a similar distinction is available for "disappointingly" and "disappointedly".
Disappointedly clearly means "in a disappointed manner": that is, a manner that expresses disappointment.
Disappointingly would then mean "in a disappointing manner": that is, a manner that causes disappointment.
A possible sentence where both could do:

"Can we go to the store?" Fred asked, excitedly.
a: His mother shook her head disappointingly.
—her answer causes him disappointment.
b: His mother shook her head disappointedly.
—her head-shake expresses her own disappointment.

I would expect to see disappointingly used in a situation where results came back worse than expected:

We had hoped to see 20% annual growth.  Disappointingly, 2% was all they could manage.

Theprimer · Answer

The addition of -ly at the end of a word normally makes it an adverb which modifies the verb, just the same as an adjective. To think of how a person might shake their head disappointingly, I visualize a situation where a person might do it. For example: A son/daughter getting bad grades then telling their parents. They might shake their heads disappointingly.

Answered by Theprimer on December 14, 2020

What does disappointingly or frustratingly mean?

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